Story Highlights

Tucked discreetly beside a garden center four miles from downtown Cold Spring, The Pantry isn’t stocked with waves of weekend warriors pouring out from Metro-North, and that’s a good thing.

For the past several years, brewed beverage enthusiasts alike have relished the Route 9 destination for specialty coffee, craft beer and new-fashioned entrepreneurial spirit.

It’s the brainchild of Samantha Lutzer, a lawyer by trade who moved to the area with her husband and decided to quite literally give it a shot.

“I wasn’t getting good coffee until I'd get down to Chelsea,” Lutzer recalled. “I was starting my day an hour and a half behind by not being caffeinated.”

The Cold Spring Coffee Pantry has a satellite location in the Village Apothecary in Cold SPring; it's original location is in Vera's Marketplace on Route 9.(Photo: Submitted)

Opened in 2013 as a multi-roaster shop, it was groundbreaking for the area, bringing beans by the likes of Joe, Heart and Blue Bottle to the area for the first time. Creative snacks, from seasonal popcorn to pastries by Ella’s Bella’s in Beacon, were a hit. Lagerheads heading home from the Taconic could conveniently refill their growlers.

Chocolate chip cookies at The Cold Spring Coffee Pantry. The cafe sources its pastries from Ella’s Bella’s in Beacon(Photo: Submitted)

Lutzer had previously owned Daily Press in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant section, a successful venture she opened with no prior experience.

“At that point, I’d never been a barista,” shared Lutzer. “I picked up a postcard one day at my local shop in the East Village, and next thing I knew, I was taking classes at the Intelligentsia training lab in SoHo.”

The Cold Spring Coffee Pantry is owned by Samantha Lutzer, who ran the Daily Press in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant.(Photo: Submitted)

Two and a half years in, Lutzer started phasing out the guest coffee program and roasting under The Pantry’s own label. She initially partnered with Brooklyn’s Pulley Collective, a co-roasting space on the Red Hook waterfront akin to WeWork for coffee professionals, to learn and perfect her craft. Today, it’s all done in-house.

Working with specialty importers to curate her portfolio, Lutzer and her team source the finest beans from around the globe, packaged in peacock feather-patterned bags as gorgeous as the contents.

For more conservative sippers, there are always one or two traditional, chocolately roasts in rotation at the Cold Spring Coffee Pantry.(Photo: Submitted)

“I knew we wanted to showcase sweet, fruity, adventurous coffees rather than what the standard customer is used to,” she explained. “The last thing I wanted was to roast coffee that felt like wearing a suit every day, after doing just that for years.

For more conservative sippers, there are always one or two traditional, chocolatey roasts in rotation, and some beans are sold in sample packs for those open to expanding their horizons with a little less commitment.

There’s now a second Pantry location in the heart of the village inside The Cold Spring Apothecary, but the original at Vera’s Marketplace continues to draw a devoted crowd of locals, hikers, bikers and blow-ins alike.

And a third will be opening in Westchester. The Pantry just announced they have partnered with Peekskill Brewery and will be opening their third location inside.

It’s also been a steady for beer hunters: The meticulously curated selection of craft drafts and bottles has over the years included such elusive brews like “Field Rotation,” a 2016 collaboration between then-nomadic Grimm Ales and Blue Hill chef Dan Barber.

From new product releases to keeping passionate people on boar, getting it right is a consistent theme at the Pantry.

Cold Spring Pantry(Photo: Submitted)

A hot topic is the Pantry’s cold brew line, available in cans, concentrate or on draft at a handful of restaurants and gourmet markets throughout the region. It’s a major growth area for the business, now a Taste NY vendor, and without brewing variables involved avoids the quality control concerns associated with wholesaling beans.

The Pantry’s few retail partners are carefully vetted, ensuring every product is enjoyed as intended. Stand Coffee, which operates mobile pop-ups at events like the Brooklyn Flea, is one of the few.